Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) standards are in widespread use in the art of video and digital imaging. MPEG is the international committee that developed international standards (such as MPEG-1, MPEG-2 and MPEG-4) that made interactive video on CD-Rom and digital TV possible. In an MPEG image system, an image frame is constructed using video object planes or VOPs. In general, a frame is formed by a large amount of pixels generally including 8 bits, 16 bits, or 32 bits. For a frame with a size of 640×480 pixels where each pixel has 8 bits, there are a total 640×480×8 bits in the frame. If the image should be displayed with a rate of 60 frames per second, then there are 640×480×8×60 bits (about 147 Mbits) of data to be displayed in one second.
VOPs include three types, namely, intra coded or I-VOPs, predictive coded or P-VOPs, and bidirectional predictive coded or B-VOPs. For I-VOP, encoding and compression are performed using a single VOP. For P-VOP, encoding and compression of a VOP are performed in reference to a corresponding I-VOP. For B-VOP, encoding and compression of a VOP are performed in reference to the corresponding I-VOP and P-VOP. In the encoding order, the P-VOP is encoded and compressed before encoding the B-VOP such that the B-VOP can utilize the information of the P-VOP. The order of encoding VOPs is consequently different from the order of display.
The orders of encoding and display may not be as sophisticated as desired in meeting systems and scalability requirements in the art. Shortcomings are present when the encoding and display orders are improperly managed and constructed, which may negatively affect system and imaging performance. Insufficient memory or losses of VOPs in transmission further exacerbate these problems.
There is thus a general need for an efficient and optimal method and system of MPEG image processing overcoming at least the aforementioned shortcomings.